The 1%, the “job creators”, the mega wealthy; these individuals all have one thing in common (or a bunch of things depending on your view) – a significantly larger bank account than the average individual. Think about a few of the richest people in the world right now. Name a few of those individuals. You likely put Warren Buffett, Elon Musk or Bill Gates at the top of the list. Now think historically. You probably can’t get past those three names. This is partially due to adjusted inflation and figuring out how much ancient kings and wealthy innovators were worth based in today’s dollars.
There was one man in history that dwarfed all others in terms of wealth. He lived in the 14th century and he was likely from what we would consider a wealthy nation, correct? Not at all, he was actually named Mansa Musa, the King of Mali, and he was worth $400 billion, adjusted for inflation. To make matters more interesting, he came from one of the last places we would have expected, he was a devout follower of a religion that is currently distrusted, he, on most accounts, was a very giving and noble man, and he may have changed history but we don’t have enough facts to accept it as truth.
All of those cryptic statements will be addressed here, but first, we need to understand a bit about the world in which he lived and how he came to become a king in the first place. This article will go in depth with as much information as possible, but it is important to note that much of the information was not written at the time, history was recorded orally, so there are debates on what will be laid out as fact here. In time, this article may be outdated as we uncover more about this man.